Made in Europe rocket tech.

Today is Friday, October 17, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis, and this is T-minus. T-minus. Twenty seconds to LOS, T-dris. Open aboard. Right side. Planet Labs Federal has been awarded a $12.8 million contract by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Three. Lockheed Martin is reportedly offering NASA to change their contract for Orion to a commercial transportation option. No. Indra Group has signed two new contracts with the European Space Agency that aim to reinforce Spain's and Europe's position in space surveillance and satellite navigation. One. High Impulse has raised 15 million euros in a Series A funding round and secured an additional 30 million euros in financing. Every Friday our partners at nasaspaceflight.com bring us the Space Traffic Report, rounding up the launch news from the last seven days and taking a look at what's to come in the week ahead. So stick around after today's headlines to find out more. Happy Friday everybody. Thank you for joining me. Let's dive into today's top five stories, shall we? Let's start off in Europe first and their push for more sovereign launch capabilities. Germany's high impulse has raised 15 million euros in a Series A funding round and secured an additional 30 million euros in financing. Since the company was founded in 2018, high impulse has raised around 74 million euros in capital with the aim of becoming a leading commercial launch provider for Europe. High Impulse Technologies is a German manufacturer and system provider of commercial rockets for suborbital and orbital launch services. And the company currently has over 65 employees in Neuenstadt, Autobahn and Glasgow. High Impulse reached a milestone in 2024 with the successful test flight of the SR-75 suborbital rocket, which demonstrated the functionality of a commercial paraffin-based hybrid rocket engine for the first time. The first commercial launch of the SR-75 with customers will take place as early as 2026. The company is also working on the three-stage SL-1 orbital rocket, which is expected to transport up to 600 kilos of payload into low-earth orbit starting 2027. And High Impulse says it will use the new capital to drive forward the development and commercialization of the SL-1 orbital rocket and expand its production capabilities. And staying in Europe for our next story, Indra Group has signed two new contracts with the European Space Agency that aim to reinforce Spain's and Europe's position in space surveillance and satellite navigation. The agreements were signed at the European Space Astronomy Center during ESA's 50th anniversary celebration. The first contract covers the upgrade of the S3TSR space surveillance radar to its next version. And the S3TSR is owned by the Spanish Ministry of Defense, and it forms part of the S3T space surveillance and tracking system. This dual-use system is a key element of the Spanish contribution to the European Space Situational Awareness System, which is dedicated to detecting and monitoring objects in low-earth orbit. Indra Group has also signed a contract for the Leo PNT-ODST+ project, which is part of ESA's Navigation, Innovation and Support Program, known as NABISP, to advance the development of an electronic navigation receiver for low-earth orbit satellites. And that receiver will acquire and process high-precision Galileo signals to enhance positioning, navigation and timing performance and synchronization in space and on Earth. And this all will enable Indra Group to contribute to more accurate, reliable and resilient PNT services by supporting key sectors such as transport, communications and infrastructure management. Is Lockheed Martin rethinking its agreement with NASA? Well, according to ours, Technica, they are. Lockheed have been vocal about making Orion available for commercial use, but it seems that they're also rethinking their approach to their current agreement with the US Space Agency. Company officials have reportedly said that if NASA wanted to buy Orion missions as a service, rather than owning and operating the spacecraft, they were ready to work with them. Now, that is a significant change from its current arrangement with NASA. As NASA's primary contract with Lockheed Martin for the Orion spacecraft is the Orion Production and Operations contract, which is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract awarded in 2019. This contract, secured through September 2030, allows NASA to order a minimum of six and a maximum of 12 Orion vehicles. It covers production and operations through at least Artemis 8 and includes provisions for both cost plus incentive fee and firm fixed price orders for future missions. So, they are currently buying and owning the capsule rather than paying for the service. Anthony Byers, director of strategy and business development for Lockheed Martin, told ours, Technica that "given the president's budget request guidance and what we think NASA's ultimate direction will be, they're going to need to move to a commercial transportation option similar to commercial crew and cargo. So, when we talk about Orion services, we're talking about taking Orion and flying that service-based mission, which means we provide a service from boots on the ground on Earth to wherever we're going to go and dock to, and then bringing the crew home. We will all wait and see if this idea takes root in the coming months." Planet Labs' subsidiary, Planet Labs Federal, has been awarded a contract by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency under the LUNO-B Indefinite Delivery and Definite Quantity Contract. The $12.8 million initial award is for Advanced Analytics for Maritime Operations and Reconnaissance, known as AA-MORE. Under this award, Planet will provide the NGA with AI-enabled Maritime Domain Awareness Solutions, which include vessel detections and monitoring over key areas of interest in the Asia Pacific. A deep-tech startup originating from Japan's Tohoku University has raised $5 million in seed-round funding. Space Quarters says it's on a mission to expand the potential of humanity, and Space Quarters develops space construction systems that enable on-site delivery of large orbital and lunar structures using proprietary robotic welding technologies. Space Quarters says it plans to use the new funds to accelerate the development of space construction robotics and electron beam welding systems for assembling large-scale infrastructure in orbit and on the lunar surface. [Music] And that is it for our top five stories for this Friday. But definitely stay with us for more on the launch news from the last week with nasaspaceflight.com's Space Traffic Report. But before we get to that, N2K Senior Producer Alice Carruth joins me now with a look at the other stories that are making headlines today. Thanks, Maria. We've included three additional stories in the selected reading section of today's show notes. Axiom Space has replaced their CEO. TALIS provides an update on their satellite deal with Airbus and Leonardo, and the US Space Force has operationally accepted SciTech's missile warning system. Tomorrow, be sure to check your podcast feed for T-Minus Deep Space. It's our special edition Saturday show where we share an in-depth interview and dive a bit deeper into fascinating topics with brilliant guests. And on T-Minus Deep Space tomorrow, we have Rick Tumlinson joining me, and we'll be talking about the upcoming New World's 2025, which is Rick's very unique event in the Space Events Circuit that leans more earning man than regular old industry conference. That is on T-Minus Deep Space tomorrow. Don't miss it! Let me hand you over now to our friends at nasaspaceflight.com for the latest Space Traffic Report. I'm Alessia Segal for NSF, and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for T-Minus Space. Kicking off the week, we had the launch of Orion Space's Gravity One rocket on October 11th at 220 UTC from the Dongfang Hong Tian Gang Bar off the coast of Haiyang in China. The mission was carrying three Earth observation satellites into low Earth orbit. This launch may be much better known for being the second flight of this Kerbal-esque-looking rocket. Gravity One is an all-solid-fueled medium-lift rocket by Chinese company Orion Space, and it's prompted all kinds of comparisons with the rockets from the game with the little green men when it debuted last year. But don't be confused, despite its comical appearance and design, this is quite a powerful rocket and is currently the most powerful all-solid-fueled rocket in the world. Also from China, we had the launch of a Changjiang 2D on October 13th at 10 o'clock UTC from the Jochuan Satellite Launch Center. The rocket launched the Xi'an 31 satellite into polar orbit. Xi'an, which literally means "experiment" in Chinese, is a term often given to experimental and secretive Earth observation satellites launched by the country. So not much is known other than that it's probably doing some ultra-secretive stuff up there. Of course, one big, big launch this week was the launch of Starship. Starship took off on October 13th at 2323 UTC from Starbase's Pad 1 in South Texas. The rocket was carrying out its 11th test flight, flying with Super Heavy Booster 15 as its first stage, and Ship 38 as the second stage and spacecraft. The plan for this launch was largely to replicate all that had gone right in Flight 10 and then try a few new things that'll be helpful for Starship's future. For example, the booster tried out a new landing burn profile, which will be attempted on future version 3 boosters. This landing profile will see the booster ignite 13 engines as usual, but then will transition down to 5 instead of 3. These extra engines will provide additional redundancy and thrust for the portion of the booster landing where it translates over to the tower. Booster 15, which had already flown previously on Starship's 8th flight, successfully accomplished this feat and hovered in the air above the water for a good 10 seconds. This was done so that the booster would then drop to the water and explode on impact and turn into a bunch of little pieces rather than big ones that could float. The ship on its own was also set to repeat the deployment of 8 Starlink simulators and the relight of a Raptor engine in space. Ship 38 did all this successfully, but the new things attempted in this flight took place during the nerve-wracking entry process that came after. Ship 38 intentionally flew with a few missing tiles across several critical areas like the main tanks, the payload bay, and the aerodynamic flaps and some of the leading edges. Moreover, these areas of missing tiles had no backup of blade of material at all and were instead just bare steel painted black. The ship was also tasked with simulating a return back to Starbase, performing a few S turns during re-entry to then perform a so-called dynamic banking maneuver. This maneuver saw the ship simulate flying around South Padre Island and positioning itself in the right heading for a landing back at the pad 2 launch tower. Ship 38 successfully flew through this re-entry with less visible damage to its flaps than in previous flights, even with the missing tiles. The ship also successfully maneuvered through the different twists and turns that it had to accomplish to get to the landing site, which SpaceX said was the exact same point in the Indian Ocean as during the previous mission. Despite all of its battle scars from re-entry and several visible holes punched in the tanks by the re-entry plasma, Ship 38 successfully performed its flip and landing burn and touched down softly on the ocean about 66 minutes after liftoff. Now, SpaceX is gearing up for the next version of Starship, version 3, which is currently in development and construction at the Star Factory facility. A new launch pad, pad 2, is also nearly complete and should undergo major systems testing in the coming months. SpaceX hopes to debut this upgraded version in early 2026, so for a few months there won't be any more Starship launches. It'll be really interesting to see if version 3 will have the same problems that we saw with the introduction of version 2, or if it'll go smoother from the get-go. Starship's smaller sibling, the Falcon 9, also had quite a few launches this week. The first of these took place on October 14th at 158 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The launch was carrying a batch of 24 Kuiper satellites for Amazon into low Earth orbit. After several days of weather-related delays, both at the Space Coast and also downrange, the mission took off without a hitch. This was the third and final planned mission of Kuiper satellites on the Falcon 9 rocket, as that's the number of launches that Amazon bought from SpaceX. Kuiper satellites will continue launching on ULA's Atlas V, and will soon fly into space using the company's own Vulcan rocket. Next year, Amazon also hopes to start flying Kuiper satellites on Blue Origin's New Glenn, as well as Arian space's Arian 6 rocket. The booster for this mission, B-1091, was flying for a second time, and it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship a shortfall of Gravitas. You may remember this as the Falcon Heavy center core dressed in Falcon 9 clothing. Yep, it's still around, and we may see still a few more flights out of it before it's converted into a proper Falcon Heavy center core. After a few weeks' gap in rocket lab schedule, orbital electron launches are back with the launch of Owl New World. Lift off from the company's own private spaceport in New Zealand happened on October 14th at 1633 UTC, which was the perfect time for the so-called jellyfish effect. The mission was carrying the Strix-5 synthetic aperture radar satellite into low Earth orbit for Earth observation company Synspective. This is the seventh mission, out of a total of 21, that the company has planned on Rocket Lab's Electron. The second Falcon 9 launch of the week took place on October 15th at 2306 UTC from Vandenberg. The mission was carrying 21 satellites for the Space Development Agency, also known as SDA, into a polar orbit. This was the second mission as part of the SDA's Tranche 1 transport layer, which in itself is part of the agency's proliferated warfighter space architecture. The transport layer is just one part of this multi-satellite constellation, dedicated to low Earth orbit, high bandwidth, low latency communications for the military. So, like Starlink, but for the military, and it's not Starlink because these satellites are made by other companies that aren't SpaceX. In particular, the ones from the first launch last month were by York Space Systems, while the ones from this launch were made by Lockheed Martin. Both companies were awarded the contract to manufacture these satellites for the Tranche 1 transport layer. And if you're confused as to what "Tranche 1" means, it essentially just means that it's the first deployment wave of satellites for the transport layer. These waves, or tranches, will be launching every two to three years, each time with new capabilities and potentially new contractors and players in the game, which could bring new technologies. Of course, this could end quickly if the Space Force decides to sharply turn away from this system and just buy SpaceX's Star Shield satellites, as has already been rumored under the current administration. For the time being, we'll just keep watching the launches and see what happens. The booster used for this mission, B1093, was flying for a seventh time, and coincidentally, or maybe not, was also flown on the previous Tranche 1 transport layer mission last month. It successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, Of Course I Still Love You, and we really wouldn't be surprised if it ends up flying next month on the next of these missions, too. Also from China, we had a Changjiang 8A launching from the commercial Wenchang spaceport on October 16th at 133 UTC. The rocket was carrying a batch of Guowang Internet satellites into low Earth orbit. Depending on how you count the launches of the Changjiang family of rockets, this was their 600th launch, so that's pretty impressive. But it's also worth mentioning that they're spread out over several different rockets and configurations, and that the first launch from this family of rockets took place all the way back in 1970. So that's only about 11 launches per year on average. It's also interesting that this rocket in particular, the 8A, has only flown four times, and all of them have been in support of China's Guowang Internet satellite constellation. The third and final Falcon 9 launch of the week was, of course, carrying Starlink satellites, but this one was special. Lift-Off took place on October 16th at 927 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The mission was special for a number of reasons. First, it broke the launch pad's turnaround record by one hour, going from 56 and a half hours down to 55 and a half. Now that in itself doesn't sound that important of a record, given that it was just an hour difference. However, according to SpaceX's Vice President of Launch, Kiko Donchev, this was the fastest time between rolling the transporter erector into the hangar for booster integration to launch at just over 12 hours. After every flight, Falcon 9's transporter erector stays on the pad and undergoes inspections and refurbishment. It doesn't head back to the hangar until it and the rocket are both ready for integration. So this was 12 hours for that transporter erector to roll back, get into the hangar, put the rocket on the transporter, upgrade the ferrying, hook up everything, roll out to the pad, go vertical, go through countdown, and then launch. That's a lot of work in a very short amount of time, so that is quite the achievement. Donchev mentioned that the Falcon team is aiming for a turnaround time from pad 40 of under 48 hours before the end of the year. So that kind of speedy processing will definitely help to get them there. This mission was supported by booster B 1095, which was flying for a third time, and believe it or not, its landing is another milestone. The 500th successful Falcon 9 booster landing. There have been so many of these 500th goals that now they all kind of blur together into one big blob, but trust me, we're keeping track of it all. Next week promises to be yet another busy one, with up to five Falcon 9 launches expected before our next space traffic report. One of these missions will be the next flight of fleet booster leader B 1067, which will be flying for a 31st time on the Starline Group 1017 mission. We'll also witness a rare occurrence. SpaceX expending a Falcon 9 booster. The Spain-Sat-NG-2 mission set for next week will be using booster B 1076, and this will be its 22nd and last flight, as it needs the full performance of the first stage to reach its geosynchronous transfer orbit. Hopefully if all goes well, we should also have the debut flight of Japan's HTV-X cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station onboard an H-3 rocket. This will be the first flight of the H-3 with the long faring of the two solid rocket boosters attached to the first stage. As you can imagine, we're also expecting some surprise Chinese launches to pop up into the schedule at some point in the week, but as usual, notices for those tend to appear a lot closer to launch and we really don't get much information ahead of time. And as you know by now, you can always check out all of that and more by going to nextspaceflight.com or downloading the app on your phone so you don't miss the next spaceflight event. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF, and that's your weekly space traffic report. Back to T-Minus Space. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Is SpaceX violating international standards? Well, this next story certainly implies it. Radio astronomers and amateur satellite trackers have detected a faint repeating signal pattern from what's believed to be a secure connection of SpaceX satellites, better known as the Star Shield constellation that's been built specifically for the US government. So what are the frequencies that we're referring to here? Well, they're just outside the bands that are used by StarLink, and that has caught the attention of analysts who specialize in space-based communications security. So what are these signals? Some experts say that it's likely part of a classified communications test, potentially for encrypted military networking, or they could be early work on what's being called space-based mesh defense. Others warn that the unusual emissions could signal interference issues or even signal leakage that wasn't intended to be public. That said, the US Space Force and SpaceX have both declined to comment citing national security, but what we do know is this, the line between commercial and defense satellite networks continues to blur, and that's redefining what classified infrastructure means in orbit. And of course, we'll keep track of any developments in this story and bring them to you, dear T-Minus crew, in a future episode. [Music] And that's T-Minus brought to you by N2K CyberWire. We would love to know what you think of our podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. You could also fill out the survey in the show notes or send us an email to space@n2k.com. We're proud that N2K CyberWire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn, and stay informed. As the nexus for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, the technology, and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how at N2K.com. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thank you for listening. Have a great weekend. [Music] T-minus. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]